The number of Touch Tone (DTMF) and rotary public subscriber telephones in operation in the United States is pervasive. Consequently, extensive use has been made of these telephones to transmit both analog (e.g. voice) and digital (e.g. data) information. It is well known that the public telephone subscriber can obtain a wealth of information by dialing for a prerecorded message. Examples are numerous and include dialing for weather, time, sport scores, and stock quotations. Such examples do not require the use of a computer to store the information requested. Some call in only systems utilize a synthesized voice, with the latter capability being disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,489,438. While this patent also describes multiple interface units, each connected to a different telephone line, each unit is under the control of the main computer at all times and does not operate independently.
Polls, however, require human operators either to ask questions or to gather responses. Pertinent general polling systems are exemplified by the U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,377,870; 4,345,315; 4,258,386; 4,151,370; 4,107,735; 3,950,618; 3,937,889; 3,909,536; 3,906,450; 3,891,802; 3,826,871; 3,794,922; 3,502,813; 3,456,192; 3,210,472; and 3,187,307. Further, the use of synthesized voices to conduct the polling and subsequent subscriber response, by his telephone keyboard or rotary dial, is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,451,700; 4,320,256; 4,084,081 and 3,644,675.
However, none of the above prior art reveals the combination of features provided by the present invention which include virtual simultaneous polling over any number of telephone lines through the use of multiple identical Telephone Interface Units (TIUs), operating independently once a telephone number is transmitted to the TIU by a Master Unit; the use of preselected telephone numbers, or partial random digit dial with predetermined three digit exchanges; the use of an on-site personal computer to generate messages, telephone numbers and cross-correlate polled data; the utilization of the same type voice synthesizers both in a Master Unit for programming the TIUs and in each TIU for simultaneous polling over individual telephone lines once the TIU is programmed by the Master Unit; a programming system having a code especially adapted to polling operations; reduction of "dead time" by specialized branching and by a convenient address-specified message editing; incoming signal recognition by circuitry and TIU programs that approximate an FFT analysis; recognition of a pulse or rotary dialing telephone at the dialed number and reconfiguration of the associated TIU to be able to receive responses from either pulse or DTMF dialers; the request of cooperation in a telephone survey of "X-length"; response by pressing certain numbers at the recipients telephone; call placing until a preset number of valid polls have been attained; prevention of erroneous answers or silence from contaminating polling results; avoidance of having the poll recorded on a telephone answering machine; "call in"/"call out" convertibility; and the use of a personal computer with an associated printer to control initial message set up and editing, to keep track of results, to permit on-site cross-correlation of data and to permit on-site readout and printing for providing highly specific and cross-correlated polling results in near real time on an economical basis.
More specifically, through the increased utilization of polling systems, there has been an increased reluctance on the part of the recipient to answer the polling questions, be it human-generated, generated by tape, or generated by synthesized voice. Current polling systems usually utilize a single voice generating system, be it a tape or a voice synthesizer which must be accessed each time a question is to be asked, or the recipient's answer recorded. These types of systems are increasingly cumbersome because of the number of tape recorders or synthesizers that are necessary and in view of the fact that in most systems, only one outgoing telephone line can be accessed at a time. In the usual case, polling may take place over as much as 6 to 10 minutes, with the particular telephone line being tied up for this length of time. The systems which can only access one speech generator are incapable of doing simultaneous polling over numbers of outgoing telephone lines. Polling problems are exacerbated by virtue of the fact that most of the polling systems, unless manned by operators, are incapable of distinguishing the types of responses given by the recipient with any degree of accuracy such that the systems often misinterpret a ringing signal, a busy signal, a noise signal, silence, or a Touch Tone signal, and thereafter branch to the wrong type of message. Branching to the wrong type of message not only increases the annoyance of the recipient, but also decreases the accuracy of the poll and indeed reduces the credibility of the utilization of these types of systems in general.
One of the most annoying factors when utilizing an automatic polling system is the frequent use of telephone answering machines. There is nothing that annoys a recipient more than the recording of a polling message on a telephone answering machine. Presently, automatic polling systems cannot detect the fact that they are connected to telephone answering machine.
Other problems currently facing the pollster's use of automatic equipment revolves around the correlation of results which often must be manually entered into a different computer for processing. Current systems while able to keep track of answers to individual questions are not capable of on-site cross-correlation of results. What is therefore needed is a system which can correlate, for instance, the number of male users with the number of Caucasians, with the number of answers, as to whether the person is a Democrat or Republican, along with a correlation as to age and a correlation as to geographic area.
It will be noted that the most accessable method of correlation to geographic area is the telephone exchange. Thus, a system which is capable of programming exchanges ahead of time results in a system capable of analyzing polling results on an area by area basis in real time.
The economical utilization of automatic polling systems also is dependent upon obtaining valid responses and eliminating those responses which are not valid. Not only does the elimination of non-valid responses permit more efficient use of the equipment so that the polling can take place more quickly, the contamination of the polling results with non-valid response is indeed an important feature not immediately available in present day equipment.
Importantly, the most economical method of polling is the ability to be able to use a multiplicity of outgoing telephone lines in such a manner that simultaneous polling can be achieved over a number of telephone lines, so that the entire poll can be conducted over a relatively short and specifically designated period of time. Moreover, the speed with which the polling can take place, rather than being dependent upon polling over a given length of time, is preferably a polling system which shuts down after a predetermined number of valid answers have been received in a given area. The system should also be actuated only over a predetermined time period such as at night after recipients are usually in their own homes.
Finally, it is very important to be able to readily encode messages and provide for multiple type of branching based upon the answers given, with a minimum amount of "dead time" so that the recipient has very little opportunity to hang up. Messages must be appropriate, easily edited, and "natural sounding", so that a natural sounding message is transmitted, with "dead time" between the initial message and any following messages being virtually eliminated The importance of the elimination of "dead time" cannot be over-emphasized in view of the fact a recipient given even a small amount of "dead time" may feel embarrassed about answering a "computer's" questions and hang up the telephone, as opposed to being encouraged to answer the poll.